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In this study, a new hollow nanotube material, 30% Co–CHNTs was prepared by the impregnation–chemical reduction–calcination method. This material can be used as a peroxymonosulfate (PMS) activator to catalyse the degradation of sulfamethoxazole (SMX). The best reaction conditions that correspond to the degradation rate of SMX, up to 97.5%, are as follows: the concentration of SMX is 10 mg L−1, the amount of catalyst is 0.20 g L−1, the dosage is 1.625 mM, and the solution pH is 6.00. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) show that the calcined composites mainly stimulate an increase in the content of bivalent cobalt in PMS and reduce the leaching of cobalt ions after the reaction. Additionally, the 30% Co–CHNTs + PMS reaction system exhibits a reasonable SMX degradation rate in a natural organic matter solution and excellent stability after three repeated experiments. Furthermore, the possible degradation mechanism in the 30% Co–CHNTs + PMS reaction system was analysed through electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and free-radical capture experiments, and it was observed that the non-radical degradation of 1O2 plays a leading role in SMX degradation. Finally, according to the nine degradation intermediates detected by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC–MS), four possible SMX degradation routes were proposed. This study proved that a 30% Co–CHNTs heterogeneous catalyst is easily prepared, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly and has potential application in antibiotic wastewater treatment.

Degradation and failure behaviors of the flexible low-temperature poly-Si (LTPS) thin film transistors (TFTs) under repetitive stretch stress parallel to channel length ( ${L}$ ) direction are investigated. A geometric effect is observed in degradation of the threshold voltage ( $\Delta {V}_{\text {TH}}$ ), which depends on the channel width ( ${W}$ ) and active area ( $\textit {WL}$ ), while has a weak correlation with ${L}$ . Three failure modes of TFTs are identified from their ${I}$ – ${V}$ characteristics: damage in the gate insulator (GI), channel traps generation, and metal line cracks. Failure statistics show that the GI failure has a low failure rate and follows the exponential distribution, while the other two modes have high failure rates in the early stage of the stretch cycles, and their failure distributions follow the limited failure population (LFP) model.

The degradation mechanism of amorphous InGaZnO (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) under pulse drain bias stress is investigated. Although the degradation mechanism is found to be a dc one, the shift of the transfer curve under the pulse drain bias (0–20 V) is unexpectedly larger than that under dc drain bias (20 V) within the same equivalent stress time. The degradation mechanism is proposed to be tunneling and trapping of electrons in the etching stop layer during the pulse peak time and that in the gate dielectric during the pulse base time under the extended drain electrode region of the a-IGZO TFT, where the occurrence of the latter is triggered by the former. A solution for enhancing the stability of the a-IGZO TFT is also suggested.

Roles of gate voltage ( ${V}_{G}$ ) and stress power in self-heating (SH) degradation of amorphous InGaZnO thin-film transistors have been clarified. Normally observed positive threshold voltage ( ${V}_{th}$ ) shift is attributed to the electron trapping mechanism, which is enhanced by both the effective ${V}_{G}$ and stress power. The effective ${V}_{G}$ plays a dominant role in most cases, while stress power takes control only if it is high enough. Following the positive ${V}_{th}$ shift, a second-stage negative ${V}_{th}$ backshift is also observed and is attributed to the water-related positive charges generation mechanism. It is enhanced by both stress power and effective ${V}_{G}$ for which stress power is found to be the dominant factor.

Degradations of elevated-metal metal oxide (EMMO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) under positive bias stress (PBS) and positive bias illumination stress (PBIS) are systematically investigated and compared. An intrinsic correlation between PBS and PBIS degradation is demonstrated. Continuous negative threshold voltage ( ${V}_{\text {th}}$ ) shift is observed under both stresses, with similar time-dependent $V_{\text {th}}$ shift and recovery behavior. Characterization parameters for dependencies of ${V}_{\text {th}}$ shift on both stress ${V}_{G}$ and temperature are also very close for the two degradations. PBS and PBIS degradation of EMMO TFTs and their correlation can be consistently understood based on a unified model, which emphasizes stress-induced accumulation of doubly-ionized ${V}_{O}$ traps at the back-channel interface, and is verified with simulation.

Different from the conventional degradation phenomenon under positive bias stress (PBS), the shift of the transfer characteristic curve of polycrystalline silicon thin-film transistors (TFTs) to the negative gate bias direction after PBS is observed and reported. The PBS degradation is found to be recoverable and the recovery proceeds at a faster rate first and then continues at a much slower rate. The recovery can be further accelerated at a higher temperature or by applying a negative gate bias. After detailed data analysis, the degradation mechanism is proposed to be the generation of protons in the gate oxide and its accumulation at the channel/gate oxide interface. The proposed degradation model could explain both the degradation phenomena and the recovery behaviors of PBS degradation.

Herein, single-atom niobium-doped boron–carbon–nitrogen nanotubes (SANb-BCN) were synthesized and utilized to fabricate an electrochemical sensor for the detection of nitrobenzene (NB), an environmental pollutant. SANb-BCN were characterized through scanning transmission electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, and Raman spectroscopy. The Nb-BNC material modified on a glassy carbon electrode (GCE) showed an excellent electrochemical response behavior toward NB. The SANb-BCN-modified GCE (SANb-BCN/GCE) gave rise to a prominent NB reduction peak at −0.6 V, which was positively shifted by 120 mV from the NB reduction peak of the bare GCE. Furthermore, the NB peak current (55.74 μA) obtained using SANb-BCN/GCE was nearly 42-fold higher than that using the bare GCE (1.32 μA), indicating that SANb-BCN/GCE is a highly sensitive electrochemical sensor for NB. An ultralow limit of detection (0.70 μM, S/N = 3) was also achieved. Furthermore, the SANb-BCN/GCE sensor was found to possess favorable anti-interference ability during NB detection; thus, the presence of various organic and inorganic coexisting species, including Mg2+, Cr6+, Cu2+, K+, Ca2+, NH4+, Cd2+, urea, 1-bromo-4-nitrobenzene, 3-hydroxybenzoic, terephthalic acid, 1-iodo-4-nitrobenzene, and toluene, minimally affected the NB detection signal. Notably, the SANb-BNC sensor material exhibited high sensitivity and specificity toward detection of NB in environmental samples. Thus, the use of the proposed sensor will serve as an effective alternative method for the identification and treatment of pollutants.

Characteristics of amorphous indium–gallium–zinc oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) are highly dependent on the hydrogen (H) content within the device architecture, for example in the etch-stop layer (ESL) of the elevated-metal metal-oxide (EMMO) TFTs. The serious apparent “short-channel effect (SCE)” was caused by the H diffusion from source/drain (S/D) to channel. Such SCE deterioration can be suppressed by thermal dehydrogenation at a cost of long annealing time, especially for a transistor architecture with a-IGZO S/D covered with H-rich silicon nitride (SiN x :H) and further capped with metallic H-diffusion barrier. The dehydrogenation efficiency is found to be significantly enhanced by fluorinating the a-IGZO. By optimizing the device architecture and/or the fluorination process to enhance the dehydrogenation, the SCE can be efficiently eliminated with well-maintained performance even for ${2}~\mu \text{m}$ -long a-IGZO TFTs.

A physical-based analytical kink current model for polycrystalline -silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistors (TFTs) has been proposed. Two important mechanisms for the kink current, namely carrier impact ionization and the parasitic bipolar junction transistor effect, are physically included in the model without introducing any artificial parameters. The proposed kink current model is fully compatible with existing ON-state drain current models of poly-Si TFTs. Model parameter extraction procedure is presented, which is based on a group of output characteristics of poly-Si TFTs with different channel lengths. The model prediction straightforwardly calculated with a set of extracted parameters is verified by excellent agreement with experimental output characteristics measured from TFTs over a range of channel lengths and gate voltages.

Dynamic hot-carrier (HC) degradation can be effectively suppressed in four-terminal low-temperature poly-Si (LTPS) thin film transistors (TFTs) with a carrier injection terminal. In order to enhance the reliability of the four-terminal LTPS TFTs, geometry effect of the carrier injection terminal, such as width and location, on the dynamic HC degradation is systematically studied. It shows that a wider carrier injection terminal, which provides more carriers injection, can suppress the degradation more effectively. As for the location, if the injection terminal is adjacent to the edge of the drain depletion region, which extends into the channel at the falling time of the gate voltage pulses, the four-terminal TFTs can provide the best immunity to the dynamic HC degradation. The proposed optimization scheme can greatly enhance the reliability of LTPS TFTs, and the mechanism can be understood based on the nonequilibrium p-n junction degradation model.

An abnormal spontaneous degradation of polycrystalline Si thin-film transistors (TFTs) subject to dynamic bending stress is reported. Dynamic mechanical bending along either the channel-width or length direction causes degradation in flexible low-temperature polycrystalline Si TFTs, such as on-state current increase and threshold voltage positive shift. However, after the mechanical stress is removed, TFTs stored in a normal ambient continue to degrade spontaneously, with similar degradation behaviors. The amount of spontaneous degradation can be larger than the mechanical bending-induced degradation and is the most significant for a moderate number of bending cycles. The spontaneous degradation is a new challenge to TFT reliability under mechanical stress.

Degrading health-threatening organic pollutants (HTOPs) in water systems through advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) is an effective way to treat environmental wastewater; however, such processes require advanced catalysts. This study combined complexation effects and structural confinement strategies to rapidly prepare Co2+-isolated metal–organic framework polymers and utilized a thermal treatment process to achieve the efficient anchoring of atom-dispersed Co in a boron–carbon-nitrogen matrix (denoted as SACoN/BCN), which can improve the utilization of Co catalytic sites. SACoN/BCN effectively activated peroxymonosulfate (PMS), with the ratio and mineralization rate of sulfamethazine (SMT) removed by degradation within 40 min reached 95.2 % and 70.0 %, respectively. Radical inhibition experiments and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) tests showed that 1O2 generated from SACoN/BCN-activated PMS was the key reactive oxygen species that promoted HTOP degradation. Density functional theory calculations revealed that, following the introduction of electron-deficient B heteroatoms, electrons in PMS will be injected into SACoN/BCN, thereby realizing strong adsorption and further activation of PMS. The cytotoxicity of SACoN/BCN is almost negligible because of the chemical bonding (or entrapment) of Co atoms in the inorganic boron–carbon-nitrogen matrix, thereby preventing Co from forming mobile CoII ions in the aqueous system. This research provides information for advanced catalysts for the removal of HTOPs and experimental and theoretical inspiration for the preparation of single-atom catalysts for advanced oxidation processes and the mechanism of PMS activation.

In the present work, hematite–boron-carbonitride (Fe2O3–BCN) nanosheets were synthesized by a simple hydrothermal reaction and the following high temperature treatment. The morphology, structure and chemical composition of the as-prepared material were carefully characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The Fe2O3–BCN nanosheets were used to modified on the surface of the glassy carbon electrode to fabricate an electrochemical sensor for lead ions (Pb(II)) via differential pulse anodic stripping voltammetry (DPASV). At the same time, the influence of the modification concentration, solution acidity, deposition potential and deposition time on response peak current of Pb(II) at the Fe2O3–BCN-based electrochemical sensor was well investigated. Under the optimized conditions, the electrochemical signal and concentration of Pb(II) show two-stage linear relationship in the range of 0.5 – 40 μg/L and 40 –140 μg/L, with a limit of detection (LOD) of 0.129 μg/L. The Fe2O3–BCN-based electrochemical sensor shows excellent selectivity and anti-interference ability in the anti-interference experiments and actual sample analysis experiments, revealing its broad application in environmental monitoring of Pb(II).

Background Desmoid-type fibromatosis (DTF) is a rare kind of soft-tissue tumors of unknown origin, which is a benign mesenchymal neoplasm with monoclonal proliferation with local invasion, easy recurrence and non-distant metastasis. It is usually arising from the aponeurosis, muscle, and deep fascia, but DTF arsing from the fat layer have not been previously reported. Case presentation: A 22-year-old male was presented with a recurrence of lower abdominal wall mass(LAWM) after multiple operations and a new mass in the skin flap donor area of the right abdominal wall. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) revealed multiple soft tissue masses and nodules in the subcutaneous fat layer of the lower abdomen and right abdomen wall, which was considered a diagnosis of fibrosarcoma, then pathological consultation was performed on the paraffin specimens from previous operations, and finally confirmed the diagnosis of desmoid-type fibromatosis in combination with pathological characteristics of the resected specimens in this visit. In general, DTF did not have the ability to metastasize, but we extracted paraffin sections and performed full exon sequencing. After personalized analysis, the results showed that there was a possibility of implantative metastasis. Due to the aggressive growth and recurrence of the tumor, the patient was subsequently treated with radiotherapy and no recurrence was observed 6 months later. Continued follow-up is ongoing. Conclusions We report the first case of DTF that occurs in the superficial layer of fat with the possibility of surgically induced implantative metastasis, for such patients, diagnosis of DTF is more difficult and surgical treatment should be treated with greater caution.

Hypercrosslinked pyrrole was synthesized via the Friedel–Crafts reaction and then carbonized to obtain urchin-like nitrogen-doped carbon (UNC). Ultrasmall iron oxide nanoparticles were then supported on UNC, and the composite was used to prepare an electrochemical sensor for detecting uric acid (UA) in human urine. FexOy/UNC was characterized and analyzed via scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectrometry, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. A glassy carbon electrode (GCE) modified with FexOy/UNC was used as an electrochemical sensor to effectively identify UA. The electrochemical behavior of the FexOy/UNC-based UA sensor was studied using differential pulse stripping voltammetry, and the optimal conditions were determined by changing the amount of FexOy/UNC, pH of the buffer solution, deposition potential, and deposition time. Under optimal conditions, the FexOy/UNC-based electrochemical sensor detected UA in the range of 2–200 μM, where the limit of detection (LOD) for UA was 0.29 μM. Anti-interference experiments were performed, and the sensor was applied to the actual analysis of human urine samples. Urea, glucose, ascorbic acid, and many cations and anions present at 100-fold concentrations relative to UA did not strongly interfere with the response of the sensor to UA. The FexOy/UNC electrochemical sensor has high sensitivity and selectivity for uric acid in human urine samples and can be used for actual clinical testing of UA in urine.

Four-terminal poly-Si thin-film transistors (TFTs), with a counter-doped body terminal connected to the floating channel, can suppress both dc and dynamic hot-carrier (HC) degradation of TFTs. With 3-D TCAD simulation, we clarify the underlying mechanisms of the suppression effect and analyze its dependence on the position and width of the body terminal. Under dc HC condition, a wider body terminal or that closer to the drain collects more holes generated from impact ionization in the drain depletion region and suppresses the parasitic bipolar junction transistor effect, subsequently reduces the kink current more effectively. Under dynamic HC condition, the body terminal injects holes at the end of the falling time of the gate pulse, partially removes the non-equilibrium state, significantly relieves the transient maximum electric field in the drain depletion region, thus suppresses the dynamic HC degradation. A wider body terminal can inject more holes and the holes injected by that closer to the drain diffuse to drain depletion region first, thus suppress the dynamic HC degradation better.

As phosphate is one of the key causes of water eutrophication, its removal from aquatic ecosystems is essential. Adsorption methods have been widely used to remove phosphate from water bodies. However, most of the adsorbents are unstable and difficult to separate from solution. In this paper, we used a simple electrospinning method to prepare a new, well-dispersed, lanthanum (La)-based porous polyacrylonitrile nanofiber (LPS) with more active sites, which improve its phosphate removal efficiency. The maximum phosphate adsorption capacity on LPS was 218.5 mg P/g (La) (50.4 mg P/g). After complete adsorption, the P/La molar ratio on LPS was 0.98. After 48 h of oscillation, the leakage of La from LPS in deionized water was only 74 μg/L, effectively ruling out secondary pollution of the water-body. Moreover, unlike most adsorbents, LPS has the advantage that it can be readily isolated from water. After treatment with LPS, the total phosphorus (TP) of a water sample from Yangzonghai Lake (Yunnan, China) was reduced to 4.2 μg/L, a value lower than the concentration threshold of eutrophication (10 μg/L) set by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the first category of the surface water environmental quality standard (10 μg/L) set by China for lakes and reservoirs.

The present work reported a simple, lable-free and sensitive electrochemical method for the detection of protein kinase A (PKA) activity. This method was based on the specific recognition of aptamer and the aptamer-induced hybridization chain reaction (HCR) amplification strategy. The aptasensor was constructed by immobilizing capture probe on a gold electrode via an Au–S bond. When adenosine triphosphate (ATP) aptamer was introduced, its one terminus hybridized with capture probe and the other hybridized with the complementary region of an auxiliary probe, which other region triggered HCR between two hairpin DNA (H1 and H2) to form a long DNA concatamer. At last a large number of electroactive methyle blue (MB) molecules were assembled on the dsDNA concatamer, which generated a significantly amplified electrochemical signal. In the presence of ATP, the HCR would not be performed because the aptamer specifically bond to ATP and the electrochemical response would decrease. However, when ATP and PKA coexisted, the electrochemical response would recovery because that ATP had been translated into ADP by PKA. So the activity of PKA could be effectively monitored according to the change of electrochemical signal. Based on the HCR amplification strategy, the aptasensor showed a wide linear range (4 − 4 ×105 U L−1) and a low detection limit (1.5 U L−1) for the detection of PKA. Furthermore, the method was applied to study the inhibitory effect of H-89 on PKA activity. The developed aptasensor was also used to the analysis of drug-induced PKA activity in cell lysates, indicating the potential application of the developed method in the fields of clinical diagnostics and discovery of new targeted drugs.

Mechanical reliability of flexible amorphous indium–gallium–zinc–oxide (a-IGZO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) is investigated by monitoring the electrical characteristic of TFTs before and after the dynamic stretch stress up to 300k cycles. With increasing the stretch cycles degradation features in a decrease in the on-state current, an increase in the off-state current, but almost no change in the subthreshold region or the threshold voltage. An approximately linear dependence between the on-state current degradation and the stretch force is observed, from which the critical fracture strain of a-IGZO thin film is determined to be 0.42%. It is proposed that a very few number of nanoscaled mechanical-stress-induced cracks, which originate from the interface between the channel and the gate insulator, and develop into both layers, but introduce only insignificant amount of interface defects, can fully explain the observed degradation.

It is important to design a nice electrochemiluminescence (ECL) biological nanomaterial for fabricating sensitive ECL immunosensor to detect tumor markers. Most reported ECL nanomaterial was decorated by a number of mono-luminophore. Here, we report a novel ECL nanomaterial assembled by dual luminophores perylenetetracarboxylic acid (PTCA) and carbon quantum dots (CQDs). In the ECL nanomaterial, graphene was chosen as nanocarrier. Significant ECL intensity increases are seen in the ECL nanomaterial, which was interpreted with the proposed synergistic promotion ECL meachanism of PTCA and CQDs. Furthermore, this ECL nanomaterial was used to label secondary antibody and fabricate a sandwiched carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) immunosensor. The CEA immunosensor exhibits high sensitivity and the linear semilogarithmical range was from 0.001fgmL-1 to 1ngmL-1 with low detection limit 0.00026fgmL-1. And the CEA immunosensor is also suitable for various cancers' sample detection providing potential specific applications in diagnostics.

Instability of a-InGaZnO thin-film transistors is experimentally investigated under synchronized ${V}_{g}$ and ${V}_{d}$ pulses’ stress. Degradation of the transfer characteristic in the forward measurement mode is much smaller than that in the reverse mode, if a typical drain bias of 5 V is applied. The degradation is found to depend on the equivalent dc stress time rather than the pulse transition edge. Larger pulse period and/or duty ratio of the voltage pulses cause more severe degradation. The degradation is affected by the recovery phenomenon, which occurs transiently when the pulsed stress is in the “OFF” phase, and enhanced by Joule heating-induced channel temperature rise. A degradation model is proposed, in which electrons’ trapping occurs at the channel/gate oxide interface, while extra electrons’ injection via thermal-assisted tunneling and interface defects’ generation occurs within a narrow region near the drain, forming a potential barrier therein. The model explains the observed degradation satisfactorily, and the result is verified by a 2-D simulation.

In this brief, a negative bias stress (NBS) induced degradation in n-type multigate polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) thin-film transistor (TFT) is investigated. It is observed that after NBS the transfer characteristic curves shift to the negative gate bias direction and multigate TFTs degrade more than the single-gate TFTs with the same effective channel length. The observed degradation phenomenon is explained with short channel effect that is resulted from the diffusion and distribution of hole carriers in the channel, which are generated in the source/drain depletion region and swept into the channel when the junctions are reversely biased during NBS. Pronounced NBS degradation caused by increased hole carriers in the channel is also verified in NBS experiment with light illumination.

A novel dual-signal ratiometric electrochemical aptasensor for highly sensitive and selective detection of thrombin has been designed on the basis of signal-on and signal-off strategy. Ferrocene labeled hairpin probe (Fc-HP), thrombin aptamer and methyl blue labeled bio-bar-coded AuNPs (MB-P3-AuNPs) were rationally introduced for the construction of the assay platform, which combined the advantages of the recognition of aptamer, the amplification of bio-bar-coded nanoprobe, and the ratiometric signaling readout. In the presence of thrombin, the interaction between thrombin and the aptamer leads to the departure of MB-P3-AuNPs from the sensing interface, and the conformation of the single stranded Fc-HP to a hairpin structure to take the Fc confined near the electrode surface. Such conformational changes resulted in the oxidation current of Fc increased and that of MB decreased. Therefore, the recognition event of the target can be dual-signal ratiometric electrochemical readout in both the “signal-off” of MB and the “signal-on” of Fc. The proposed strategy showed a wide linear detection range from 0.003 to 30 nM with a detection limit of 1.1 pM. Moreover, it exhibits good performance of excellent selectivity, good stability, and acceptable fabrication reproducibility. By changing the recognition probe, this protocol could be easily expanded into the detection of other targets, showing promising potential applications in disease diagnostics and bioanalysis.

Novel optical labels for biosensing in near-infrared (NIR) region (especially between 800 and 900 nm) are arousing much attention for higher penetrating capability, less scattering and lowered autofluorescent background. Herein, a water-soluble electrochemiluminophore with effective electrochemiluminescence (ECL) around 815 nm is developed via doping dual-stabilizers-capped CdTe nanocrystals (NCs) with Co

8-Hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG) is a principal stable marker of DNA oxidative damage. Sensitive and specific detection of 8-OH-dG is of great importance for early disease diagnosis. In this paper, we developed an electrochemiluminescence aptasensor for 8-OH-dG detection based on target induced multi-DNA release and nicking enzyme signaling amplification strategy. First, three kinds of short DNAs were aligned on the aptamers immobilized on the magnetic beads. In the presence of 8-OH-dG, the aptamer recognized and specifically bound with 8-OH-dG, leading to the release of three kinds of short DNAs and three-fold signal amplification. Then the released short DNAs hybridized with ferrocence (Fc) labeled hairpin DNA (Fc-HP) immobilized on the gold electrode to form a double strand DNA. Subsequently, nicking endonuclease (Nt.AlwI) recognized the asymmetric sequence in the dsDNA and cleaved the substrate strand (Fc-HP) into two parts, one fragments containing Fc would leave the surface of electrode. Based on the quenching effect of Fc on the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) of Ru(bpy)32+/TPA, a signal-on ECL aptasensor was developed. At the same time, three kinds of short DNAs were released again and reused to initiate the repeated cycles of hybridization-cleavage. Under double signal amplification, this aptasensor achieved a low detection of 25 fM and a wide linear range from 100 fM to 10 nM for 8-OH-dG. Besides, the amount of 8-OH-dG in urine samples derived from different people were determined with satisfactory results.

The low-potential electrochemiluminescence (ECL) sensors based on cathodic light emission of luminol have caused more and more concerns due to their good stability and reproducibility. In this work, highly porous platinum (Pt) nanostructures on ionic liquid functionalized graphene film (GR-IL/pPt) were prepared as platform to construct a label-free ECL sensor for the detection of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). Due to their good biocompatibility, excellent electrocatalytic activity and highly porous structure, the as-prepared GR-IL/pPt composites benefited amplified cathodic ECL signal of luminol and high loading density of the CEA antibody. After CEA was incubated with the CEA antibody, the cathodic ECL signal of luminol decreased thanks to the less conductive immunocomplex. The proposed ECL immunosensor realized high sensitivity for CEA detection with a wide linear range from 0.001 fg mL −1 to 1 ng mL −1 and an extremely low detection limit of 0.0003 fg mL −1 (S/N = 3). Moreover, the sensor showed good specificity, stability and reproducibility, indicating that the provided strategy had a promising potential in clinical detection.

Chlorothalonil (CHL), imidacloprid (IMI) and oxyfluorfen (OXY) are commonly used in combination to increase crop yield. However, these three pesticides are toxic to aquatic organisms and do not easily degrade. In this study, a surface-enhanced Raman scattering-based lateral flow assay (SERS-LFA) test strip was prepared by combining antibodies with SERS nanotags, and then competitive immune binding was used to detect the three pesticides simultaneously. Moreover, the two-way binding effect of ssDNA-streptavidin bound to Ag4-NTP@AuNPs and Ag4-NTP@AuNPs with antibodies was used to further amplify the detection signal. Under the optimal conditions, the SERS-LFA test strips exhibited high sensitivity, a low detection limit, short detection time, high specificity and low cost. Furthermore, the detection range was within the values prescribed by international detection standards. By measuring the intensity of the SERS signal on the test line of the paper strip, accurate quantitative analysis was achieved. The practical application of the proposed system was demonstrated by simultaneous detection of CHL, IMI and OXY in environmental and food samples with satisfactory results.

In this study, a novel sandwiched electrochemiluminescence (ECL) immunosensor for the detection of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was developed. The nanocomposite of polydopamine and Ag nanoparticles (PDA-AgNPs) was prepared by the redox reaction between Ag+ and dopamine. This nanocomposite not only provided an effective matrix for the immobilization of primary antibody (Ab1) but also enhanced the conductivity of the electrode. Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) were immobilized on the poly(ethylenimine) functionalized graphene oxide (PEI-GO) through amido-bond. Then Au nanoparticles were decorated on the CQDs modified PEI-GO matrix, and the resulted complex AuNPs/CQDs-PEI-GO was introduced to link secondary antibody (Ab2). The CQDs can be connected to the electrode surface through the combination of CEA with Ab1 and Ab2, and then the amplified electrochemiluminescence signal of CQDs was obtained with the synergistic effect of AgNPs, polydopamine, AuNPs and PEI-GO. Under the optimal conditions, the ECL intensity was proportional to the logarithm value of CEA concentration in the linear range from 5pgmL-1 to 500ngmL-1 with a detection limit of 1.67pgmL-1 for CEA detection. The immunosensor was applied for the CEA detection in real samples with satisfactory results. The proposed ECL immunosensor showed good performance with high sensitivity, specificity, reproducibility, stability and will be potential in clinical detection.

DNA methyltransferase (MTase) plays a critical role in maintaining genome methylation patterns, which has a close relationship to cancer and bacterial diseases. This encouraged the need to develop highly sensitive, simple, and robust assays for DNA MTase detection and inhibitor screening. Herein, a simple, sensitive, and specific DNA MTase activity assay was developed based on magnetic beads-liposome hybrids combined with personal glucose meter (PGM) for quantitative detection of DNA MTase and inhibitor screening. First, a magnetic beads-liposome hybrid probe is designed by the hybridization of p1DNA-functionalized magnetic bead with p2DNA-functionalized glucoamylase-encapsulated liposome (GEL). It integrates target recognition, magnetic separation and signal amplification within one multifunctional design. Then, in the presence of Dam MTase, the hybrids probe was methylated, and cleaved by methylation-sensitive restriction endonuclease Dpn I, making liposome separated from magnetic bead by magnetic separation. Finally, the separated liposome was decomposed, liberating the encapsulated glucoamylase to catalyze the hydrolysis of the signal substrate amylose with multiple turnovers, producing a large amount of glucose for quantitative readout by the PGM. In the proposed assay, the magnetic beads-liposome hybrids offered excellent sensitivity due to primary amplification via releasing numerous glucoamylase from a liposome followed by a secondary enzymatic amplification. The use of portable quantitative device PGM bypasses the requirement of complicated instruments and sophisticated operations, making the method simple and feasible for on-site detection. Moreover, the proposed assay was successfully applied in complex biological matrix and screen suitable inhibitor drugs for DAM for disease(s) treatment. The results reveal that the approach provides a simple, sensitive, and robust platform for DNA MTases detection and screening potential drugs in medical research and early clinical diagnostics.

In the present work, PDDA-functionalized graphene sheets (PDDA-GS) were prepared by reduction with hydrazine hydrate in situ in the presence of poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA). The (PDDA-GS/PEDOT:PSS)n multilayer films were fabricated by a layer-by-layer self-assembly technique based on the electrostatic interaction between positively charged PDDA-GS and negatively charged poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). The self-assembly process was characterized by ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis). Pt nanoparticles were electrodeposited in situ on the multilayer films. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) were used to characterize the properties of Pt/[(PDDA-GS/PEDOT:PSS)n] multilayer films. Cyclic voltammetry and chronoamperometry were used to study the electrocatalytic activity of Pt/[(PDDA-GS/PEDOT:PSS)n] multilayer films towards methanol oxidation. The results indicated that Pt/[(PDDA-GS/PEDOT:PSS)n] showed high electrocatalytic activity toward methanol oxidation and good tolerance toward carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. This novel support for Pt nanoparticle catalysts will be promising in the fabrication of fuel cell electrodes and other catalytic devices.

In this paper, reduction of the gate-induced drain leakage (GIDL) current after drain bias sweeps for p-type polycrystalline-silicon thin-film transistor is reported, which is proposed to be due to local electron generation and trapping near the drain during the drain bias sweep in the kink current region. The reduction of the GIDL current during drain bias sweeps at successively lower gate biases undergoes a two-stage evolution behavior. The mechanism for the two-stage reduction behavior of the leakage current is clarified with the extraction and comparison of the activation energy for the leakage currents before and after the drain bias sweeps. Drain bias sweeps are also found effective in improving the uniformity of the leakage currents.

An immunosensing biochip for simultaneous detection of three biomarkers related to acute myocardial infarction (AMI) was developed based on anionic soybean peroxidase (SBP) functionalized nanoprobe and chemiluminescent imaging. The nanoprobes (Ab2-SiO2-SBP) were fabricated by co-immobilization of SBP and one of the detection polyclonal antibodies, anti-cardiac troponin I antigen (anti-cTnI), anti-creatine kinase-MB (anti-CK-MB) and anti-myoglobin (anti-Myo), on the silica nanoparticle surface. The detection sensitivity was enhanced since the large surface area of silica carriers increased the loading of SBP for per sandwiched immunoreaction. The immunosensing biochip designed as 3 × 8 wells array was constructed by simultaneously immobilizing three capture monoclonal antibodies on the same one microtiter well with 2 × 3 active spots. In the presence of target protein, the nanoprobes will be attached onto the spots with high specificity through the sandwiched immunoreactions, which triggered the chemiluminescence (CL) signals on each sensing site of the microtiter plates and allowed to CL imaging of three biomarkers in one well at the same time. Therefore, the proposed biochip was a promising convenient strategy for simultaneous detection of cTnI, CK-MB and Myo, which showed potential application for multianalyte determination in clinical diagnostics.